


The Science of Lying

by Menochange



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Confessions, Deaf Character, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, M/M, Monologue, Past Child Abuse, Possible Character Death, Secret Identity, Sort Of, Swapping places, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 05:19:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15942584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menochange/pseuds/Menochange
Summary: Billionaire, Tech genius Howard Stark's children, Tony and Gregory Stark went disappeared without a trace on their way home during what appeared to be a kidnapping gone wrong. There were no suspects or leads for days until in a surprise turn of events they found a boy at the edge of the state forest. Alone.After days of searching and speculation was the news headline of the century."Family overjoyed as Gregory Stark was found!"If only they knew they truth.If only they knew that it was Tony not Gregory who was found that day.





	The Science of Lying

**Author's Note:**

> So this started off as a completely different story that I wrote years ago but never posted, but I've been going through my old stuff and decided to revisit this one. I liked the base concept but ended up doing a major rewrite and ended up with this. So hopefully its better than what the original was... if not, I am sorry :D

_Have you ever wanted to be someone else?_

_Don’t! Trust me, it’s not worth it. Being someone else is much harder no matter what you think now. You don’t believe me? Let me tell you something, life is hard for everyone. Why would you want to make it harder by being someone you’re not and doing something you hate? And all for what? Love? Acceptance? The chance not to be such an utter disappointment? A chance to live so called ‘better life’?_

_Well I hate to break it to you but life sucks, no matter who you are. If you can be who you are and not have to pretend all the damned time then you should count yourself lucky._

_I’ve been there. I wished for another life, and was ‘lucky’ enough to have all my dreams come true. Problem is that I didn’t read the fine print. I didn’t know what I would have to sacrifice. What I’d have to become._

_And now nine years later, I wish I hadn’t been so stupid, I wish I could turn back time, that I could have told the truth that day:_

_“No mum I’m not Gregory, I’m Tony the other twin. You know the child you and Howard always seem to conveniently forget; the child who looks like your golden boy but is actually your biggest disappointment”_

_But I didn’t and so the police went looking for Tony that night. Not knowing that I was the imposter. Not knowing it was really my brother out there in the cold. Sometimes I wonder if things would be different, if I had told the truth. If they knew which twin had really gone missing that night, would the outcome be different? Would they have looked harder? Longer? Gotten more people involved?_

_It sounds horrible, it sounds untrue. The police obviously tried to find the boy who went missing, Howard Stark’s youngest son. I’m not saying they didn’t. It’s just, if they had known it was Gregory out there, more people would have gotten involved, been invested. As it was my parents were just so happy that their golden boy was safe and well, that by the time the news came that they hadn’t found any sign of their other son, they weren’t really all that fussed._

_They put on a good show for the cameras, for the public and high society. They played the part of grieving parents to a T, but I knew the truth. I saw the relief on their faces when I said I was Greg, saw the apathy underneath the crocodile tears when the police told them that ‘Tony’ could not be found._

_Now you might be wondering, why? We were (are? my brother’s body was never found, so he could still be alive) twins right? So why one was loved, revered more than the other?_

_The answer was simple. Greg was the oldest (by 5 minutes – although he had never let me live it down). He was athletic, sociable and smart. He could be cunning, rude and downright manipulative at times but people just didn’t seem to care. One word from Greg and people swooned at his feet, stumbled over themselves to do whatever he wanted. They lived and died at his feet. He was a god amongst men and attracted more than his fair share of women (even as a teenager which was honestly all kinds of creepy).  Greg never had an awkward phase physically or socially.  Everyone loved Greg, they were proud to call him their son, friend or even acquaintance._

_Me on the other hand. Well, let’s just say that no one was breaking down any doors to talk to me (Yes. I am serious, someone actually did this to talk to Greg). I’m more… creative. I questioned everything and dreamed big, too big if you asked some. I’ve never been as smart as Greg or as funny or brilliant. I was the one who as a child was fine playing make believe, who built stupid, useless things and was always underfoot. I was different. It took me a while to realise as a child that different wasn’t better, different wasn’t acceptable._

_My big brother had always been there to help me though. Sometimes he didn’t have the best method but I knew that everything he did was to help me. To save me from Howard’s punishment. To shield me from the harsh realities of the world – and sometimes that meant breaking my things before anyone else could, so I wouldn’t get attached or spreading rumours about me to the other kids because it was better that he do it then let someone else do something much worse. Because he loved me. He was the only one who did._

_My parents have never been the most accepting of people. They are both so caught up in their own world, the lifestyle of the rich and famous that they never really had time for me, unless I did something wrong that was. My father is a drunk, a high functioning alcoholic as Greg used to say. There were times when I was a kid, where I would do something wrong, mess something up and he would teach me a lesson, beat the shit out of me. Only me. Maybe he knew even back then that I was different, a failure. Or maybe it was because Greg was the poster boy for SI, the genius of the family and I was just a lost cause._

_My mother knew of course. How could she not? But she would just ignore it. Honestly she didn’t really care. Whenever my father got into one of his moods she would take Greg out for ice cream, mother-son bonding time she’d call it like it was a reward for being the good child. The heir to the Stark name. Howard used to join them when he was done, whilst I would limp up to my room and clean myself up. I had to hide it you see. I couldn’t let Jarvis or anyone else know. Greg said they’d take us both away if anyone found out. He said that being in the system was way worse than anything Howard could do. He said he would deal with it.  So I would hide out in baggy clothes until the bruises faded – by the time I was ten I was a pro at applying makeup, no one could even tell I was covering up bruises._

_But here I am rambling about shit that you don’t care about, about the boy I used to be before Gregory disappeared._

_Truth is that at the time eight years ago, it didn’t even occur to me to tell the truth. It was just a game of pretend but this time I had friends and my parents actually loved me. It wasn’t supposed to even go on for so long, Greg was supposed to come back. All i had to do was act like him, be social, loud and sporty. Nobody noticed that I wasn’t him that I was Tony. No one even gave credence to the idea that Gregory could be the one who didn’t come home._

_If I acted or said something weird people just put it down to me losing my brother and not to me being an imposter. So by the time I realised – a couple months after the incident – that I didn’t want to play pretend anymore, I didn’t want to be Greg (because being the golden child was hard and not as great a life as I had thought). It was too late, the search for my brother, or well me, was over. They didn’t find anything and nobody was that torn up about it, except for me._

_It was during the wake my parents held that I heard my mum telling Obadiah Stane that and I quote “Maybe this was God’s way of telling us that he isn’t our problem anymore”.  Do you know how it feels to hear your own mother say something like that about you and then have to go and act like you still love her, that you feel no hate or resentment towards her. Trust me when I say it’s damn hard._

_And then there was a matter of my missing brother. Despite what you may think, you know with the whole pretending to be him and wanting to live his life, I didn’t actually want him gone. We were twins after all, we may have been different but we shared a bond – we were sort of close in a way nobody else got. I loved him, I love him and I never wanted him dead or missing, I never meant for any of this to happen._

_You probably don’t believe me. I know how this sounds. But Gregory loved me, he looked out for me and took care of me. He would do anything for me and I him. We were, we are family. The only family I had who was worth a damn. And now he is gone._

_‘But it’s been eight years Tony, why haven’t you come clean?’ I hear you ask snarkily (don’t even front, I know that deep down you are a snarky little shit)_

_I tried, I really did._

_I confessed. I told them I lied and that Greg was the one out there._

_But they don’t believe me. All of them, my family, my teachers, my ‘friends’, they all believe that I just go through periods where I have a mental break down out of guilt. Because I feel responsible for Gregory’s disappearance – and I do, don’t get me wrong, I know that if I had been better, if only I could …_

_But I can’t._

_They are right though, I do have break downs but not for the reasons they all think. I feel guilty because I stole his life. I’m the one who gets to hang out with his – horrible – friends, date bimbo girls in his place, win awards and get recognition for things that he could probably do better. I get to be the boy everyone expected him to grow into. How can I not feel guilty?_

_I can’t tell anyone this, I sound crazy, and they’ll probably have me committed or something. I mean… not that you’re not anyone but you’re different._

_‘Why, Tony? I hear you ask’ judgement clear on your face and look it’s not for the obvious reasons, I mean… it kind is but it’s also… I mean, you just don’t seem to really give a shit you know? I respect that, I wish I didn’t have to care about other people. Do my own thing, you know? Not be this anymore. You know?_

 

* * *

 

 

For the first time since he started talking Tony looked up, his eyes met those of his companion. The other boy’s sharp green eyes were watching him, narrowed slightly in concentration. He moved his hands in odd gestures and Tony frowned in response.  The older boy sighed clearly frustrated at his understanding and Tony felt like a horrible person. More so than usual.

He knew what he was doing was wrong. This thing he was doing, he knows that it’s cruel and totally inappropriate but it just sort of happened.

The other boy just sitting there in a secluded area of the university library away from prying eyes – although at nearly 3am, there wasn’t another soul in sight – and Tony had noticed the boy with his sharp cheek bones and beautiful green eyes and thought ‘fuck it’. So there he was sitting down next to this gorgeous man – who was most likely a model and waaaay out of his league, but he had to try, even if nothing real could ever come out of it – about to start off with the best pick up line he could think of (which admittedly wasn’t that great considering it was “Are you a Carbon sample? Because I want to date you”) when the boy sighed loudly and slid a paper over to him.

Tony was admittedly confused but for a brief moment he was also overjoyed, was it really going to be that easy? That a boy like this would even consider going out with _him_. It seemed too good to be true. And it was. Instead of a number Tony had gotten a note that simply said:

****

**_I am DEAF. Fuck off._ **

 

He felt himself deflate, taking the hint Tony slid the paper back to the boy and walked away. Never to see the boy again. Or so he planned.

It seemed like after that interaction nearly two months ago, he started seeing the boy everywhere, in the library, on the train, at his favourite coffee place, even in some of his classes. How had he never noticed him before?

But that was fine, everything was fine. Tony would just pretend to not notice him – which was honestly easier said than done but still he should get an A for effort, because he did try – and they would have no further interaction ever.

Except…

Today was the anniversary of the incident (as it is called in the Stark household) and Tony just needed to get away from everything, he needed to focus on something else. Which is how he once again found himself in the library in the early hours of the morning in the presence of the beautiful one once again. And so Tony thought ‘Fuck it’ once again and sat down right across from the other boy like an asshole – even though they were the only two people in the library at this time and there were honestly dozens of other seats he could have chosen.

And then the words just started coming out and all the feelings and emotions that he had been repressing for years came out. It felt good to let it all out and it wasn’t like he was hurting anyone. The other boy couldn’t hear him, he wouldn’t know what Tony was saying, and he wasn’t going to call him crazy. He just needed to get some of it all off his chest, then he could go back to pretending – pretending everything was fine, pretending that he was who everyone wanted him to be, pretending to be Gregory.

Tony was startled out of his thought by a cold hand touching his, thrusting a paper into his open palm.  He looked up at the other boy who frowned adorably when he realised that Tony hadn’t read the note. The engineer bit back a grin looking over at the other boy. The boy looked pointedly at Tony’s hands silently urging him to read what he had written and Tony conceded even though he knew it would probably be a reiteration of the boy’s previous note, it was the least he could do all things considered.

 

**‘ _I can read lips’_**

Well Fuck.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think :)


End file.
